


dream to be with you

by kynikos



Series: zk drabbles 12.20 [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: (i think), Drabble, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Nightfall - Freeform, Sleep, Zutara Drabble December 2020, zkdd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:46:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27832492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kynikos/pseuds/kynikos
Summary: After the Agni Kai has been fought, the war ended, and everything set right, Zuko can't sleep without dreaming of fire. Searing, scorching, burning.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: zk drabbles 12.20 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2037115
Comments: 1
Kudos: 37
Collections: ZK Drabble December 2020





	dream to be with you

**Author's Note:**

> zutara month! wow! look at me, all hip cool and trendy with the fandom events! 
> 
> the prompt for today was 'Nightfall'.

_If I could grasp the shadow that covers half the world_

_If I could take the nighttime, and cut it with a sword_

_If I could hurt the darkness, or make the twilight bleed_

_I’d say goodbye to nightmares; and say farewell to dreams..._

* * *

When he dreamed, he dreamed of fire. There had been someone in the room with Zuko, tending to him, every night since the comet. Sometimes it had been Iroh, sometimes Sokka. It was even Toph once, although afterwards she swore she was never doing it again. Most of the time it was Katara, sitting by the bed, trying to relieve the pain with her healing every now and then. It didn’t always work. 

During the nights when it did work, Zuko slept almost peacefully. Not entirely. Not quite. He cried, in his sleep. He tossed and turned uneasily once he had managed to drift off, and he gasped in pain every time his wound chafed against the bed. 

But he slept. And he woke in the morning well rested. And it went on like that for nine days, until he insisted that he wasn’t a child, that he was healing, that he was fine, and that they didn’t need to watch over him like a mother frog-hen.

So they left him alone. The first night he did not sleep. He couldn’t. The sun was gone, the shadows in the corners loomed large in his eyes, and when he saw the candles out of the corners of his eyes, it looked like their flames were blue.

And because he hadn't slept, he was tired the next day. He spent it restless and miserable, trying to move about the palace. He was weak. He used a cane, his attendants hovering around him anxiously. They only made him feel worse, though, and he felt almost relieved when they finally left him alone to sleep.

And he did sleep, for a while.

But it wasn’t more than an hour before he woke, thrashing, screaming that his face was on fire. Attendants rushed in, followed a few moments later by his uncle. But it took them far too long to calm him down, and he did not sleep again that night.

The next day they didn’t want to leave him. He insisted. ‘I’ll be alright,’ he said. ‘It was just a nightmare.’

So they left him to sleep again.

And that night he woke, sheets twisted and pillow smoking, begging for mercy. It was Aang who came in, this time. He had been sitting on a rooftop, thinking, and when Zuko’s bed started burning, he smelled the smoke. So he swooped down and bent water onto the firebender’s face to calm him, and Zuko spluttered into silence. 

‘Are you okay?’ Aang asked.

‘Did I wake anyone?’ Zuko answered, and when Aang told him he hadn't, he said he would be fine for the night.

But he didn’t sleep, and spent the hours until morning staring out the window at the waxing moon.

The next time he fell asleep was in the middle of the day. Zuko had wanted to sit by the pond for lunch, and Sokka had joined him, and it was quiet enough that he drifted off for a minute. Sokka noticed, and stilled, glad that Zuko could sleep for at least a little bit.

But he came struggling awake, eyes wide, trying to call out. His face flushed when he saw Sokka looking at him, and he went back to his room soon after. He spent the rest of the day alone, and as the day dragged on without him he felt a weary sense of futility.

He was so very tired.

* * *

When the sun began to set he tried to light a candle, but his hands were too shaky. The flame sputtered and died the moment it left his fingertips. He stood, for a moment, in that dim twilight, the light from the setting sun splashing through the high window and breaking on the opposite wall.

When he lay down gingerly, careful not to brush the lightning scar, he took a deep breath, trying to fill his lungs to their fullest, and closed his eyes.

Fire. Whenever he slept, he saw fire. As the soon-to-be-Fire-Lord (as soon as he was well enough for Iroh to step down) he should not have had these fears, the fear of a red hot flame through his other eye, or of a bolt of blue lightning coursing through every nerve. Fire should have been his. But he dreamed; and when he dreamed, it was of fire.

As he lay with his eyes squeezed shut, the sun sinking lower and lower until only the faintest gold came through the window, the door opened and Katara came in, softly, careful not to step on the creaky board in the doorway that had been built in case of intruders.

‘Katara?’

She sat on the bedside chair that Zuko hadn't been able to convince the attendants to get rid of. ‘Hey,’ she said.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Sitting with you.’

Zuko raised an eyebrow. ‘Why?’

‘Because we’re friends?’

‘Why now, though?’ he asked deliberately and a bit belligerently.

‘Because I care about you, and I want to make sure you're okay,’ she said, just as deliberately. ‘I want you to get some sleep—'

Zuko sighed at her words. ‘It’s late.’

‘It’s the same time for you as it is for me. I won’t stay long. Just till you go to sleep.’

His arms were crossed over his stomach, and she reached out and held one of his hands, leaning forward on her knees and closing her eyes. ‘Go to sleep, Zuko,’ she said, and sang.

‘ _If I could take you with me when I close my eyes and sleep_

_If you could walk beside me when I go away to dream_

_If we could spite the twilight and spend the night together too_

_I’d leave the dark alone, my love, and dream to be with you..._ ’

And as night fell and the last rays of the sun sank beneath the horizon, Zuko closed his eyes, still holding Katara’s hand, and slept. And he didn’t wake until morning, and his only dream was of lying in still, cool water, looking at the moon.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to the amazing [moonzspirit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonzspirit) for beta-ing this fic! check her out!
> 
> i'm writing for zutara now, i guess. whatever. 
> 
> just kidding. 
> 
> kudos and comment if you liked. go look at all the other awesome fics being written for this event. subscribe to everything in sight. survive!


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